By: Sintayehu Tamirat
Cooperation under the Nile Basin Initiative has attained significant results, said officials of the initiative.
Briefing media Thursday on the 19th Nile Day, NBI Executive Director, Florence Grace said NBI is a mechanism for regional transboundary cooperation, indicating that "there are a lot of good practices from the Nile basin that are being cited by many scholars and experts out of the basin.
Ethiopia's representative in the NBI Ministers Council, and Ethiopian Minister of Water and Energy, Habtamu Itefa (Dr.), said cooperation and collaboration with a belief in “One river, one people, one vision" has resulted in many mutual benefits.
"People have now started thinking of collaboration," he said; mentioning the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) signed by 6 states and came into effect few months back.
He also indicated that the elevation of the NBI to the Nile Basin Commission (NBC) level, though this has not been materialized yet, is another fruit of collaboration of riparian states within the NBI.
Minister Habtamu, who said Ethiopia has been playing a pivotal role since the inception of NBI to taking it to institution level, mentioned that there have also been efforts among riparian nations to share the benefits of the Nile waters.
Ugandan representative in the NBI Ministers Council on his part stressed that the cooperation has got a tangible shape. "We don't talk about water sharing, but sharing benefits of the Nile water resources. For example, the power generated in Ethiopia is exported to other neighbor states. Even Uganda is to benefit from it."
By the same spirit of cooperation, Uganda is expiring electric power to its neighbors including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The 19th Nile Day will be observed Saturday on 22th of February, 2025 with various assortments, the major event being at the Science Museum.
The theme of this edition of Nile Day is "Strengthening Nile cooperation for climate resilience and shared prosperity."